2014 HW: Newtown Creek Ride

Word of theday
Pollution (n.) – the presence in or introduction into the environment of a substance or thing that has harmful or poisonous effects.
Latin: from polluere: to soil, defile, contaminate

Intro Lesson:We started off, as usual, labeling the boroughs and compass directions. We focused specifically on this maze-looking section between Brooklyn and Queens which we then learned was our destination for the day: Newtown Creek. We talked about how the creek used to be very natural and looked like any, normal, “flow-ey” river should but due to industrialism, it now looks very “robotic” as coined by Cappy. We also learned that the bottom of the creek is polluted with gunk called “Black Mayonnaise”. Sounds disgusting right? It is. Its a mix of oil, feces, and a whole bunch of other gross stuff! Yuck!

Newtown Creek Ride:
As always, we got started at the East River on 96th Street. We rode over to the Queensboro (nothing new for our riders), crossed, and rode through Long Island City before…getting our Brooklyn Badges! To get to Brooklyn, we took the Pulaski Bridge. We stopped in the middle to take a look at the water from above. There were bottles and plastic in the water…that’s not good! On the bright side, the view over the East River from the bridge was unbeatable.

Once in Brooklyn, we rode past some awesome graffiti. The Hot Wheelers were super pumped to take even more awesome pictures. Cappy even got to talking to some guys that were taking professional photos of the walls to use for their graphic tee collection. For lunch, we sat at one long picnic-like bench and feasted on plums and corn. The Hot Wheelers were, as their team name might imply, burning rubber today! We got to our lunch spot so early that we were even able to relax by the water and soak in the sun of this beautiful day. Rejuvenated and hydrated, we headed back over the Pulaski.

Thankfully, unlike for the Jump Streeters on Tuesday, there were no surprises waiting for us back at the Queensboro today.

Between the light breeze and the warm sun, today was the perfect day for a bike ride!